remembrance
by akaiiko
Summary: "It's the greatest love story ever told," Koh tells Katara. "It's also a complete lie. The real story is like so: reincarnated lovers, their love conquering even death. And you've always been a part of it." [Zutara; Semi-AU; Post AtLA]
1. Interlude : Koh

**Notes :** Remix & reboot of my old fic Timeline. Inspired heavily by my not-quite-a-decade-long slow burn fury at the post-AtLA canon treatment of Katara and listening to the Hamilton soundtrack on repeat.

In many ways, this fic is still my baby.

Expect me to explore the problematic implications of canon, both in terms of worldbuilding and characterization. Expect me to shamelessly indulge in my favorite tropes like reincarnated lovers, mythological parallelism, and families of choice. Expect me to haul in my favorite characters like Koh the Face Stealer, who never got enough screen time, and June the Bounty Hunter, who never got enough anything. Expect me to plumb the depths of moral dissonance. Expect me to, to borrow a phrase from the aforementioned Hamilton soundtrack, deal with the implications of _who lives, who dies, who tells your story_.

Do not expect me to be entirely beholden to canon. (Particularly not the comics.) Do not expect me to treat Aang as a paragon. Do not expect me to be entirely beholden to the original fic. Do not expect me to be entirely beholden to my update schedule.

I've been in this fandom over half my life. I love you all. Here's my sorry attempt at a gift in return for all the things you've given me.

* * *

 **Interlude**

 _Koh_

* * *

The new Avatar roars like a lion turtle. All self-righteousness and teeth. "Petty problems?" And there it is, the lightning crack after the thunder. It would be impressive, perhaps, to a younger Spirit. One who does not remember Avatars backed by thousands of lifetimes. One who does not remember before Avatars. One who does not remember before humans. One who is less weary. "This is the _fate of the world_."

"It always is," Koh says. Humans, always there and gone in the blink of an eye, cannot fathom the way the universe dances with extinction. They write histories only to forget, forget, forget. Most mortals can at least acknowledge their limitations. Koh will grant them that even as he steals their faces, their lives, their stories. Avatars, however…

Dark hair flows over centipede body. Koh blinks the eyes of a woman taken centuries ago when her lover was too late. From this Avatar there is no reaction. Of course. Lifetimes lost. He allows the face and the memory to disappear away and brings forth another of his thousand faces.

 _That_ merits a reaction.

A cringe, marked by a brief curl of the upper lip and stiffening of the shoulders. Gone so quickly that it could've been imagined. Whoever trains the Avatar these days is good, but not good enough. "You're lucky," Koh says. "That I am old and bored. I could have taken your face just then." And there's another stiffening but the face, oh the face, it remains perfectly still. Better, better, maybe the Avatar can learn.

"It's just," the Avatar begins, voice as carefully neutral as expression. "This is the fate of the world."

Koh twists away from the young human. He crawls up the walls of his abode. Disappears into the dark. "What is it this time?" he asks, snake's tongue giving him a sibilant hiss. "You need to find a Spirit? Maybe one of the old gods you humans worship?" Old man replaces snake and the words are easier now. "Or is it an eclipse?" Cat replaces monkey. Eyeing the Avatar, he changes his mind, "No, no, it must be something else. Something less…"

"There's a war," the Avatar says.

"There's always a war."

Stiff, eyes fixed to a knot in the tree, the Avatar says, "This is worse than the usual war." Humans, so petty. So forgetful. The world has survived wars that lasted a century, wars that led to the breaking of continents, wars that gouged out the tender underbelly of humanity. "People are dying. Spirits are dying. The war is…it's terrible."

"And you haven't _stopped_ it," Koh growls, swooping down toward the Avatar with teeth bared as the cat blinks away to reveal a baboon. He's gratified to see the Avatar take a few stumbling steps back. Less so to realize that the Avatar has kept a blank expression. Well, the game isn't over yet. Koh is old and he is patient. "So tell me, Avatar, what do you need from me, hm?" Sliding back into the shadows, Koh waits for the Avatar to gather courage once more.

It takes…longer. Longer than Koh would expect from one brave and stupid enough to enter his abode.

When it does happen, it's almost a surprise. "I need you to tell me how to defeat Republic City. My friend, you see, my best friend... A Spirit possessed her and transformed her. After that, the General of Republic City declared war." Again the pause drags on, just a few beats too long, before, "The General blames me. For not stopping the Spirit. For not closing the Portals. For…for letting Jiang suffer this way."

Echoes. There are always echoes in the Spirit World. _Someone's going to_ _ **kill**_ _them._ Koh, the Face Stealer, He of One Thousand Faces, retreats into the furthest reaches of the tree. Where shadows cling so thick they feel near alive. From here, the Avatar is but a distant bit of bright cloth. Perhaps here, the echoes will muffle and die.

"Leave," Koh croaks. "Leave now."

"Please!" The Avatar, for the first time, looks up into the darkness. Brown eyes are wide, pleading. Nothing like the grey eyes that were younger and older than they ought to be. Nothing like the one face he never wanted to put on. "Please, our worlds could both be destroyed if you don't help."

Another time. Another place. Another tragedy. Always, always another story. Koh laughs but there's no humor in it. It tastes like bitterness and rust on his tongue, the tongue of an old woman. "No." There can be no help for this. "I will not. I cannot. Even if I could, even if I would, it is already too late."

The Avatar stills. "I can still fix things." Fix what the old gods could not? Fix what the Spirits of all that is great and terrible could not? Fix what an Avatar, an Avatar before there were Avatars, set into motion? Universe save him from headstrong, self-righteous Avatars. "Please, I can fix this. I need your help. I think it might save Jiang."

Jiang. Jiang, and Rie, and Shu, and Kupthik, and Chuan-Li, and Nanaki, and Lee, and Eiko, and Jin, and Nian-Zu, and Katara. More than a thousand lives, blurred and spun, arcing through the heavens. Forgotten. Mourned only by the one left behind. Their tragedy made into romanticism. Their sacrifice into martyrdom. Their love made into fairytales. Their stories made soft, if their stories were made into anything at all.

Save for the little Waterbender. The woman who commanded blood and ocean, who bore her scars like blessings, who would have remade the universe with the sheer force of her will. Katara would raise fearless eyes the exact color of a summer sky just after a thunderstorm to meet his ever-changing face. And she would demand he tell her story, tell it true. "Let me tell you a story," Koh says. "It is a story so old that not even the Great Spirits remember it now. It is a story about the first days, and the last days, and the days in between. It is a story, you see, about two lovers."


	2. Part One : Katara

_Part One_

 **Katara**

* * *

The sky burns.

An hour ago, she handed him Appa's reins so she could rest for a bit. She lay down and rested her cheek on her palm. She tried to tell herself a story that would blur away the battle ready set of her body. She slept or thought she slept. But she doesn't feel any better than she did before and so she lifts herself from the saddle to move to where Zuko sits.

It's odd how he sits. Straight backed and proud like a king upon a throne. Not slumped, the way she sits, like she's still trying to curl in on herself for warmth in a world made of ice and snow.

"How close are we?" she asks.

Zuko shrugs. "Another few hours." His eyes are on the horizon. "You should rest for a while longer. Save your strength." Part of her wonders why he won't look at her. It shouldn't matter but it does. It makes her feel lost.

"I'm sorry," she says. Impetuously, maybe too much so, because he stiffens in surprise and can't even seem to figure out how to ask her what she's sorry for. "I'm sorry for earlier. For not…I can't think about if Aang doesn't come back and save the world because…because if he doesn't, then…"

One of his hands comes up and grips the back of her neck in a gentle hold. The thick curls of her hair tangle in his fingers but she can still feel his sword callused fingertips as they press against the tender skin at her throat. In an instant she's reminded of how large his hands are and how strong. Though he could break her neck—and she's aware of that in a morbid kind of way that comes from most of the world wanting to kill her at any given time—he only uses the hold to pull her toward him. As her face presses into the crook of his own neck, he begins to rub his thumb in slow circles at her pulse point, as though to soothe.

No one's ever held her like this before. She's not sure what to make of it. Katara closes her eyes and feels the faint rasp as her eyelashes drag against his skin. For a moment his grip on her tightens and then he lets out a low sound that's half sigh and half growl.

They stay like that for a while.

Katara really does sleep this time, she thinks, and when she blinks awake he's shifted his hand from her neck to her waist. It's a little more comfortable and a little less intimate but just as possessive a hold. Which is an odd thing to think but is the first thing that occurs to her.

"If Aang doesn't come back," he says and her mind scrambles to catch up. "Then you and I will be in a Fire Nation that still has a tyrant for a Lord." There's horror in his words but his voice is even, measured, steady. "If Aang doesn't come back, then we will have to fight our way out and try to reconnect with the White Lotus and your brother." When he pauses, she sucks in a shaky breath. "If Aang doesn't come back, then the world will crumble into ashes."

All of that is true. It makes her afraid but it also makes her angry. Part of her thinks he knows that. That this is why he said it. Because if she is fierce, then she will live.

* * *

They make it to the edges of the Fire Nation.

No sign of the fleet, which must have left hours before, when the comet had not even quite touched the sky. But there are craggy islands that jut from the ocean and villages clinging to their volcanic sides and seabirds that drift on the crosswinds.

Katara thinks of her first sight of those islands, when she'd been fourteen and scared and following Aang on a spirit quest, and how she'd found in them a terrible beauty. It had called to something in her even then. The year since has strengthened the call into something almost like the longing she feels for the South Pole.

If she could find the words she'd open her mouth to tell Zuko all of that. But there's not enough time and there's no words and so she doesn't say anything.

* * *

"Please don't do this," she says. There's so much distance between them. She wants to reach for him and draw him close. Like how he drew her close earlier. But she doesn't know how to hold him or how to make him understand.

Zuko looks at her. And there's something about the way he's looking at her, like he's trying to memorize her face, that makes her stomach drop. "Stay out of the arena," he says. Even though he sounds as steady as he has since they set out; there's a faint tremble in his lower lip. It's like he's already prepared to die. "If I lose—"

" _Don't_ ," she snarls.

Sighing, he reaches for her. It's not like before. Just a brush of his fingertips against the arch of her cheekbone. Nothing solid for either of them to hold on to. "Just promise me, Katara. Promise me you'll stay alive no matter what happens to me. I need to know."

Feeling mutinous, she reaches up and grips his wrist with both hands. Holds him to her even though he needs to go. Tries to memorize the heat and strength of him against her skin just in case all these things he worries about come true. "I promise," she says. "I promise." And she lets him go.

* * *

Promises keep her at the edge of an arena already devoured by flames. She tries to keep count of the long minutes with the uneven beat of her heart but she can't hear it above the roar of fire and she can't feel it above the wash of heat and fear that consumes her skin. Promises keep her, but she resents them, just the same.

There's something intensely and terribly _aching_ about this battle.

Stories are tucked into each burst of flame. Katara wonders what the stories are and wonders why she never thought to ask. Why none of them ever thought to ask. Why they simply accepted that Zuko and Azula were enemies. Why, when it was impossible that she would ever try to kill Sokka, it was inevitable that Azula would try to kill Zuko. Why there couldn't be another ending to the story.

* * *

"You want lighting?! I'll show you _lightning_!"

* * *

Zuko stands in the courtyard of the Summer Palace. There's solidity to his stance and it is the solidity with which Toph stands before she breaks mountains. There's grace in his motions and it is the grace with which Katara moves before she shapes oceans. There's power on him and it's nothing she can put words to.

Because she has nothing better to do she watches, for hours, as he corrects Aang's form. While Aang wearies, darts hopeful looks at the sea and the sky, Zuko remains firm. Purposeful. Intense. "Redirecting lightning is swallowing the universe," he says.

* * *

All her worst moments taste like ashes.

When she is three and running through snow turned grey from coal smoke, trying to keep up with her father's long strides as he screams her mother's name, and stumbling through the gaping blue flap of their tent: there's ash on her tongue, stuffing up her nose, blacking her tears on her seal-fat cheeks.

When she is fourteen and fighting in a cavern lit by glowing crystals, watching the world's salvation tumble to earth a smoking ruin, and clutching his dying body close to her pounding heart: there's ash on her teeth, squeezing her lungs, staining her tears on her hunger-slender cheeks.

When she is fifteen and witnessing a revolution on the steps of a palace, clenching fists to keep from going to her enemy turned best friend's side, and breathing denial as he takes on lightning meant for her: there's ash on her soul, suffocating her hope, tattooing her tears on her starvation-thin cheeks.

* * *

Instinct drives her forward. ( _Stay out of the arena_ , he says, _stay out and survive._ ) Dust rises beneath her feet. ( _Survive._ ) Water surges to her hands. ( _Promise me._ ) And she knows, as he rolls onto his stomach and reaches for her, that she's been given a chance.

* * *

Zuko's heart struggles to beat. It is an uneven rhythm beneath her shaking hands. Barely there, flickering like a weak candle flame, but _there_. (And she is three months younger. She clutches Aang in her arms and searches for a heartbeat that won't come. She is lost.) Katara settles her palms—already glowing with water meant to heal what cannot be healed—against his chest more firmly.

Healing is not magic.

To heal is to grit her teeth and set herself to endure. To heal is to pray to every Spirit, great and small, for strength. To heal is to wage a battle with an uncertain outcome. To heal is to feel his heart stutter, nearly give out, and then surge back to life as she wills it to. To heal is to remake the world in a single person.

Katara fails to count the moments that pass as she wrests his life from the jaws of death. How much time passes doesn't matter. All that matters is that she does not stop until he lets out a sharp breath that moves his chest beneath her hands. It's then that she knows he will live.

"Thank you, Katara," he says. As though he did not swallow the universe for her.

"I think I'm the one who should be thanking you," she says. It comes out both sharper and softer than she had meant. Because he would have died for her and she feels raw with that knowledge; scraped open and hollowed out.

Slow at first, she reaches for him. Settles a hand on his shoulder to keep him down—doesn't he realize he was literal heartbeats from death only a few moments earlier?—or maybe help him up. Then it's all too fast. One touch isn't enough. She tumbles headfirst into him, face mashing into his neck, arms winding around his too-broad shoulders. It takes her a few ragged breaths to realize that she's crying.

Zuko wraps an arm around her. Part of her expects him to shush her, to murmur helpless things, to try to comfort her in that endearingly awkward way boys who've grown up too fast do. But he doesn't do anything except pull her closer. Tightens his hold until they are so close their heartbeats echo off one another.

* * *

Fire Sages descend upon them.

They ask what is to be done with the Mad Princess and bow repeatedly when told to take her to a comfortable holding cell where she cannot hurt herself. They ask what is to be done with the flaming palace and bow repeatedly when told to douse the fires but leave the rebuilding for another time. They ask what is to be done with the crown and bow repeatedly when Zuko snarls that he doesn't want the damn thing. They ask what is to be done—

"We need rest," Katara interrupts.

The oldest and therefore most venerable of the Fire Sages looks at her. It's clear what he sees. A Water Tribe peasant, ragged and worn, disruptor of sacred duels. It's clear he finds her lacking. Katara lifts her chin and dares him silently to say as much. For the space of a heartbeat it seems he might take her up on the dare.

Zuko's arm wraps around her shoulders.

All of the Fire Sages seem taken aback at the protective stance. "Of course," the eldest Fire Sage says. Quietly. Reluctantly. "The Prince's rooms are, of course, still held in readiness. And I am sure we can find an appropriate guest—"

"Katara will stay with me," Zuko says. There's just enough growl to his voice that no one thinks to argue.

* * *

All she can see is his broad back. All she can hear is his desperate roar. All she can smell is his fire. All she can feel is his love.

It's the moment of impact. Lightning, blue like the heart of a glacier, curves around him. Devours him. Destroys him. It's the moment of impact. Water, blue like her eyes, curves around him. But he's gone and she can't bring him back and she can't follow him and she can't breathe through her tears.

All she can see is his lifeless body. All she can hear is her own sobs. All she can smell is his life's blood. All she can feel is her own despair.

* * *

Katara wakes up screaming. It's an animal noise, wretched in its pain, that pierces the night air. She wants to stop. Fights to stop. But her body doesn't listen. Demands release from the agony writhing beneath her skin. Tears streak from her eyes, sting at the untended nicks on her face, drip off her chin. It hurts now, the screaming, because she hasn't stopped once. Even as she sucks in trembling breaths it's not a relief because soon she's screaming again. Screaming and screaming even as she struggles to be silent.

"Katara!" There are hands on her, running up over her arms to her shoulders to her neck. Warm thumbs, heavily callused, stroke against her throat. It's tender in a way she doesn't know how to comprehend. When she pulls in another breath, one thumb settles over her pulse point, and, "Shhhhh. It's okay, Katara, it's okay."

No, it's not. It'll never be okay again.

When she opens her mouth to scream again, her voice breaks. It trails off into a wail and then a whimper. Silence is loud. For a few heartbeats she's relieved. Only then the silence deafens, devours, destroys.

"What's wrong?" The voice is warm, husky, rough at the edges from sleep and fear. "Katara," it says. "Katara," pushing back the silence. "Katara."

Katara reaches up with shaking hands to grasp at his wrists. Solidity and strength meet her fingertips and she digs her nails into his flesh until he lets out a soft grunt. Anchored by this touch in the dark, she thinks she can maybe breathe, so she does. Draws in gulping, gasping breaths until her throat doesn't feel quite so raw. All the while he whispers her name, over and over, keeping back the silence.

Still crying. Crying and crying and crying. Like the world is ending.

(It did. Yesterday. That's not why she's crying.)

Zuko thumb rubs slow and sure over her pule point. It should not be comforting. He could snap her neck. (Katara doesn't think she'll ever stop thinking of all the ways the world can kill her.) He won't snap her neck. "Nightmare?" he asks.

"Yes," she admits.

Pulling one of his hands free, Zuko lets out another quiet grunt, and then there is light. One candle burning bright against the darkness. Half his face, the half burned by his father, comes into stark illumination. The gold of his eyes is so vivid in the night. Worry lines his face as he takes in her tear streaked face.

"I'm fine," she says.

Irritation joins, but doesn't quite replace, worry on his face. "You're not fine," he says. "You don't have to lie to protect me. I'm not fine either." That's right, she remembers a little too late, Zuko's not one of the children she has to keep safe. They've already seen one another at their ugliest. Been bitter enemies and bitterer allies. There's nothing left to hide. "What was the nightmare about?"

"You." When she says this, she can't quite bring herself to meet his eyes. Instead she lets her gaze drop to his chest and the red scar starburst over his heart. "You died and I couldn't… I couldn't reach you. Couldn't bring you back." _Couldn't follow_. "And then there was a man, a man with so many faces, a man who offered—" Cutting off, as much because she can't remember as because she doesn't want to tell, she waits until he makes a soft murmur of encouragement. "And there were so many people, spinning around me, just out of reach. And I couldn't… I tried to save you. I tried but you were _dead_ —" Again she cuts off but this time she says no more when he murmurs encouragement.

Defiance makes her body tight. Hot. Blue eyes narrow and chin lifts as she dares him to say what she already knows. That she sounds like a girl with a broken heart. That she sounds like a girl who watched the man she loves die. That she sounds pathetic, and weak, and needing.

One side of Zuko's mouth tucks down. It's not quite a frown. Just something painful, and sad, and wanting. "I'm here," he says. "I'm here." His thumb presses against her pulse, not enough to hurt, just enough to make her blood leap. Gentle in a way she never would've associated with him before this night.

Zuko leans in and presses a hard kiss to her mouth. Chapped lips move over her, clumsy and gentle, so that she tastes lightning and boy and forever. There's a moan caught in her throat that never quite makes it out. Her hand tightens around his wrist like she can hold him here with her in this moment. Time seems to go liquid. It is sticky sweet in the summer heat.

By the time he pulls back she's lost all sense of nightmares. It's like the world has been made new again.

Katara licks her lips and leans forward. Rests her forehead against the jut of his clavicle. When her breath puffs against his scar he shivers. Throws his arms around her. It's too warm for that. Their sweaty skin slides and sticks. She relaxes into it anyway. Zuko smells good, like smoke and spice and safety.

"We should rest," he says.

"Mm," she says. One shoulder rises in a half-hearted shrug. It bumps against his chest and he groans. When he falls back into the bed she falls with him. The top of her head knocks against his chin. The jut of his hipbone presses into her stomach. It's fundamentally uncomfortable, in the way only tangled human limbs can be, but it comforts her. When he slings an arm over her waist, it seems like maybe it comforts him too.

"We should rest," he says again.

"If Aang doesn't come back," she says. Contemplatively. Zuko stiffens beneath her. She presses her hand against the edges of his newest scar. Moves gentle fingertips over taut skin. "We'll still have each other," and she flattens her palm across the scar, "Isn't that why you choose me?" and she feels his heartbeat steady and sure.

Zuko lets out a bark of laughter. "I should've known you'd figure it out." Lips press against her hair. Careless and possessive and good.

* * *

Later, Katara will remember this night. She will remember it and know it was the beginning of everything.


	3. Part Two : Zuko

**Notes:** Surprise bitches, I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me. Or, remember when I said I wouldn't be beholden to an update schedule? Yeah. About that. Thank you to those who continued to review despite the year long absence during which I did a lot of life stuff and not a lot of writing stuff.

* * *

 _Part Two_

 **Zuko**

At first he thinks that he's blind.

His entire face is swathed in sweaty bandages and the air is drenched with the scent of crushed herbs. The humidity of autumn in the capital is legend, but he's always had servants to fan him on those afternoons that break into thunderstorms. As if on cue distant thunder and the following crack of lightning breaks the still air.

He strains to say something. His voice comes out cracked and hoarse. There is no answering 'shish' of a servant gliding across the tatami mats to tend to him. It's not that he's forgotten what brought him here. Maybe at first but he remembers now. The arena, the flames, the shadow of his father over his broken body. Still some part expects some sign of life. Some answering voice that will soothe or scold. He can hear nothing at all beyond the thunder, and he is grateful to the storm for assuring him that he still has his hearing.

Time passes in weak limbed, sweating, whimpering stupor. He prods at his bandaged face every so often. Each time the smell of herbs rises stronger from the folds of cloth, to mix with the steadily approaching scent of rain.

It hurts but it means he's alive.

* * *

Someone's fingertips rest lightly against his scar. They trace its edges, where the fire flared out and left less damage. They explore the heart, where the only blessing was to not lose his eye. They touch what he's never allowed anyone to touch.

Zuko opens his good eye.

All he can see is Katara. Dark, curling hair that smells of smoke and lightning makes a curtain to block out the morning sun. It brushes against the bare skin of his shoulders and teases at the shell of his ear. When she sees his open eyes, she half-smiles and it's charming because her lower lip is still caught between her teeth. "Are you okay?" she asks. Fingertips stroke once more at the edges of his scar. Eyes the exact color of the Ember Island Sea meet his and he knows, instinctively, that he will never know a woman more beautiful.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'm okay." What he wants to say is: we'll be okay. But even though he doesn't say it, he thinks she gets it, because the half-smile turns full. "How long have you been awake?"

Katara tilts her head slightly. "A while," she says.

It sounds too simple when she says it like that. Zuko doesn't quite believe it. Especially when, instead of meeting his eyes, she folds herself against his chest. Startling how quickly and thoroughly she fits herself against him. Face buried against his neck, arm slung carelessly over his waist, body tucked into the space just beneath his arm. They're entwined like lovers but that doesn't make it erotic. It makes it sad, and quiet, and comforting.

Tangling his fingers into her thick hair, he lets his fingertips rub against her scalp, and tries to think of a good way to ask if her nightmares kept her awake. Nothing comes to him. It's not like he's ever been good with words.

A voice at the door saves him from further humiliation. "Prince Zuko?" Though he doesn't know the voice, he recognizes the politely blank cadence of the words. 'Servant' he mouths to Katara when she pulls back just enough to look at him. This seems a good enough answer for her as she immediately presses her face back into the crook of his neck. "Lady Katara?" She lets out a snorting laugh, more air than sound, that slides along his skin. "Would you like—"

"We'll get up later," Zuko yells. Not in an unfriendly way. Just a 'please leave us alone' way. At least he hopes that's how it comes across. There's a pause. He can almost imagine the servant's face—mildly confused and maybe even a little irritated beneath the usual impassivity—and adds, "Thank you."

Katara lets out another one of those laughs. "That was polite," she says.

Rolling his eyes, Zuko tugs gently on one curling lock of her hair. "I can be polite," he informs her.

"Mm." Not dismissing, but not rising to the bait either. Zuko wonders when he learned her enough to know that. He decides it doesn't matter. What matters is the way her breathing evens out, and her hand goes lax against his chest, and she trusts him in this most fundamental of ways. Knowing her is one of the great blessings he's been given.

* * *

They rise late, when the sun has climbed near the top of the sky, and wander out into the palace. Zuko realizes he's never seen the halls so empty nor heard them so quiet. Though the servants are well-trained to be unobtrusive and the nobles are well-trained to be deferential, there's a difference between quiet people, and _no_ people. He tells Katara all of this and she nods understandingly. When she reaches for his hand, he takes it, so things don't feel quite so empty.

In the storerooms they find dried fruits and meats. In the kitchen there are day old sweet breads that had been meant for Azula's coronation celebration. All of these, they take.

"Back to your room?" Katara asks. It is clear she asks only because she needs him to lead the way back through the labyrinthine halls. But Zuko shakes his head. There's somewhere else he has in mind.

Katara lets out a soft sound, not quite a gasp and not quite a sigh, when she sees the inner gardens. Unlike so much of the palace—bearing marks of his sister's descent into madness—this place is untouched. The trees are full of summer. The turtle-ducks swim placidly in their pond. It's exactly as he remembered it.

"It's beautiful," she says. Without waiting for him, she thumps down the stairs, instinctively drawn toward the water. Zuko watches, his mouth dry, as she falls to her knees beneath the shade of the tree. Exactly where his mother used to sit. Playful fingers skim along the edge of the water and gain the passing attention of the turtle-ducks. She lifts her gaze from the pond and the turtle-ducks. Their eyes meet, her mouth curves into a smile, and he's helpless.

Zuko moves to her side. As he sits beside her, too close, his fingers shred some of the sweet bread. "Here," he says. When he presses a bit of sweet bread into her palm, he tries not to notice how her fingers curl toward his own, or how her breath catches in her throat. "You can feed them."

Again, she smiles. Gently, she tosses the morsels into the water next to the eager turtle-ducks. Once her hands have emptied, the turtle-ducks go back to their swimming, and her hands come to rest on her lap.

"What is this place, anyway?" Katara asks. She's broken from whatever thoughts she'd fallen prey to. Now she reaches with eager fingers, plucking up meat and mango, pushing them into her mouth with the kind of graceful greed that makes his stomach clench.

Tapping his fingers against his knee, Zuko tries to find something diplomatic to say, and instead says, "It's my mother's garden."

Dark hair spills over her shoulder as she whips her head around to look at him. There's a pause, and then she swallows, and her eyes soften. One of her hand reaches out, glances across his bicep, and then drops awkwardly to the grass between them. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't…"

"Don't be," he says.

For a few long moments, there's only the quacking of the turtle-ducks and the rustle of a light breeze through the trees. Zuko wants to hit himself for bringing it up at all. For making things awkward. For bringing ghosts into their moment of peace. Maybe he should apologize.

"Tell me about her?" she asks. Her voice is close. It's the only warning he gets before she leans against him and puts her head on his shoulder. The warm press of her body, alive in defiance of the whole world, anchors him down. When he wraps an arm around her shoulders, she doesn't do more than murmur softly and nudge a bit closer, like this is normal. Easing the awkwardness and the apologies. So he tells her about how his mother taught him how to feed the turtle-ducks and she laughs just when she's supposed to and it's genuine and he laughs too and…

Agni, he thinks, I'm never going to recover from her.

* * *

Once their meal is over, Katara mentions that she ought to check on Appa. The simple but necessary task serves to remind him that he ought to check on everything else. It would be prudent for them to separate for this. They don't. Separate, that is. They move through the halls with sudden purpose; so close that their hips and shoulders bump. Their mouths set into identical lines of determination. They finish one another's thoughts half the time. No one thinks to question their efficiency. No one thinks to question their presence. No one thinks to question anything.

* * *

A week after the end of the world, Zuko's pouring over a map in an antechamber off the throne room. Sages point to various deployment positions as they describe his father's original plan of attack. Nearly every available soldier, from their depleted navy to their fledgling air command, has been put on this one genocidal mission. Zuko feels the tension in his shoulders ratchet tighter with each unit marker they push around the map.

"My Prince," a younger Sage says. For the majority of the council he has been quiet. Now he steps forward and bows his head in a show of deference that might be just that. A show. "I understand your desire to grasp our military positions. But should we not focus instead on securing the Capitol? We must acknowledge the likelihood of a siege. It is paramount that we protect our borders in these troubled times." Quiet murmurs come from the previous silence. That tells Zuko everything he needs to know. They've all been thinking this. It merely took one impetuous enough to say it. Now they all look to Zuko for some kind of response.

Tapping a finger against the map, right on the gleaming ink that marks Caldera City, he says, "We are sitting turtle-ducks. There's no securing we can do with our current resources. If my father succeeded in burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground there is nothing to stop him from doing the same to this city."

There's a collective intake of breath. Sharp as the crackle of autumn leaves underfoot. It seems they've elected to allow the younger Sage to speak for them now. Because he steps forward, breaking from the pack, and gestures toward the frontlines neatly outlined on the map. "We do not speak of your father, my Prince." Carefully he points to the piece that Zuko had used to symbolize the resistance. "We speak of the Avatar. Perhaps not all the rebels wish us harm. But if the Avatar has, as you said, defeated the Phoenix King then he will surely lay waste to our kingdom at first opportunity. As punishment. Once already they have invaded this city and—"

A quiet snore punctuates everything. Zuko looks up and spots Katara. On the first day of these meetings, she'd claimed the sole chair in this chamber, the one meant for the Fire Lord. There'd been some questioning looks in his direction but he said nothing and so they said nothing. Now she's curled up on that chair, legs pulled into her chest, mouth open as she continues to let out those quiet snores.

"It is late." And it is, he can feel the absence of the sun in his bones. "I thank you for your assistance," he tells the Sages. "We will continue this discussion tomorrow morning."

They don't want to leave. They want him to assure them that he will keep the tiger-wolves from their door by securing the Capitol. So he's surprised when a few of them smile tightly. Tightly, but genuinely. No matter that he's been declared a traitor twice over, a traitor is better than a madwoman, and maybe better than a madman calling himself the Phoenix King. Apparently they've come to terms with that much.

It's jarring to watch them bow and back out of the room. Somewhere along the way he'd managed to let go of the idea that one day he would be Fire Lord. The crown ceased to matter, even as the duty to his conscience, to his people, to the _world_ grew to encompass his life. It's jarring. But then his gaze falls back on Katara.

When he pulls her into his arms, as he must, she only murmurs and curls toward the heat of him. If the past week has been hard for him they have been harder for her. Those left in the palace have need of her healing after the destructive spiral of Azula. During the breaks she should rest but instead she attends meetings with him. To offer a fresh perspective, and soothe the worries of the nobles and the Sages, and give him quicksilver smiles that even his temper.

Zuko admits to himself, carrying her through these silent corridors, that he's grateful for the sleeping weight of her. Quiet and trusting. Past nights have been home to her terror, her screams, her hands clutching at him like she doesn't quite believe he's there…

As if she hears his thoughts, she murmurs again in her sleep. Zuko hefts her higher in his arms and gets a better grip on her. They've made it into the royal wing of the palace. Another hallway and he pushes the door to his room open with his foot. Golden eyes flick over the dark corners of the room as he searches for any sign of an assassin. Years as a refugee have left their mark and he doesn't think he'll ever stop thinking about all the ways people could kill him. But the shadows don't move and Katara's squirming restlessly in his arms and he wants to tuck her into bed.

The futon dips beneath her weight as he puts her down. He's pulling the blankets over her hips when one of her eyes slits open. "Zuko?" she murmurs. Quiet. Trusting. He pulls the blankets up to her shoulders and brushes a hand over the soft curve of her cheek. Instinctively she nudges into his palm.

"I'm here," he promises. "I'm here."

* * *

Rain falls and so for the first time they eat breakfast on the sheltered stairs by his mother's garden instead of in the garden itself. Katara finishes her meal quickly and sucks the juices of the mango off her fingers. The thoughtless gesture makes Zuko's cheeks heat and his stomach twist with something that definitely isn't hunger. Or is hunger but not the kind he can satiate with the bread in his hand.

"You keep looking at me like you want to kiss me," she says.

It's so quiet that it's barely audible above the sound of the rain meeting the roof. But it startles him into dropping his bread anyway. "I—" Agni, he can't think of any response because it's true. Sometimes he still swears he can taste her lips and it's been over a week.

"Why don't you?"

Picking up the bread, he very carefully puts it back on his plate. Anything so he doesn't have to meet her eyes. That twisting feeling in his stomach has morphed into something even worse that's a lot like guilt. "I know that Aang…" Here's the truth. Zuko doesn't know how to have this conversation. Everything he thinks he ought to say is getting caught in his throat, hot and sticky, so that it's easier to hunch his shoulders toward his ears and stare out into the garden.

"Aang loves me." The sound of her voice is greater than the storm unfurling above them. Furious and cold and unbending. He's still not looking but he can hear her getting to her feet. "But that doesn't mean he owns me."

Zuko throws his hand out and catches her wrist before she can leave. When she looks back he's already staring at her. Golden eyes entirely steady and shoulders gone back to their usual proud set. There's courage burning in his veins that feels like when he stood in the heart of dragon fire and saw the universe unfold before him. It's not enough for what he's going to say but it's all he has. "Kiss me," he says. But what he means is: _choose me_.

Maybe she understands.

Because here's how it goes. How it's imprinted into his skin like a burn scar for the rest of his life. Katara tilts her head just so. Their noses brush, their breaths mingle, and then their lips press together. Zuko cups her jaw with both hands. They fall into each other. They choose each other.

* * *

Messenger hawks come. Their feathers are sleek with rain. They are impatient for the warmth of their eyrie. And their scroll compartments all bear the same message in cramped kanji.


End file.
